


Let Her Live

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Premature Birth, Season/Series 04, Unplanned Pregnancy, emergency surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:38:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11657985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: “When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only four pounds; but God let it live.” - Harriet Ann JacobsOliver Queen and Felicity Smoak had a daughter. She was born by emergency c-section at seven thirty-two p.m on the first of August. Immediately after her birth she was taken straight to the NICU for emergency care. She was born far too early.Three hours after her birth, that was all the information Oliver had about their child.





	Let Her Live

**Author's Note:**

> So I first started writing this towards the end of season 4, which is when this is set. Yep, that's right, I spent about 18 months writing this one shot.
> 
> A huge thank you to @aussieforgood and @intolauren for editing this for me!

_ “When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only four pounds; but God let it live.” - Harriet Ann Jacobs _

 

He couldn’t think of anything except the words he heard twenty minutes ago through his voicemail, words that changed his entire world.  _ Felicity’s in the hospital.  _ Four words that he couldn’t stop hearing in Donna’s trembling voice. He hadn’t even waited to hear the rest of the phone call before he was on his motorcycle, breaking a myriad of laws as he raced towards Starling General. He’d forgotten where he’d parked by the time he was entering the building, focusing instead on making his way up to the surgical ward that he’d prised out of the receptionist. 

 

“Oliver-”

 

“Donna,” he stopped where he’d almost walked past the flash of blonde hair that was suddenly clinging to him. She looked visibly shaken, paler than he’d seen her since she found out Felicity had been shot. Before she could gather her words, Oliver was talking over her. “Where is she?”

 

“She’s in recovery, we can’t-”

 

Recovery didn’t stop him. Recovery meant surgery, it meant that whatever happened had been bad, had been an emergency, and entirely warranted Donna’s expression. He glanced to the doors of the recovery ward, the ones he wasn’t supposed to go behind, from his experience with her spinal surgeries, and started towards them. “I need to see her,” he decided.

 

“Oliver, she’s-”

 

But he was already gone.

 

\--

 

Felicity was the only person on the recovery ward, dazed and drowsy on a bed just to his right as Oliver allowed the doors to swing past him and close over Donna’s protests. She was just as pale as her mother, her face void of her usual color in place of a confusion that covered her more so than the piles of blankets over her form. He remembered her telling him how cold she felt coming around from the anaesthesia, but when he made his way over to her side she wasn’t shivering.

 

“Felicity…” he whispered, taking her hand as he leaned towards her.

 

“Oliver?” she slurred, blinking in his direction with a small frown.

 

“Felicity, hon. It’s me,” he assured her. “I’m here.”

 

He waited for her hand to close around his, but it didn’t. It remained limp in his grasp as she glanced around with slow, heavy breaths. “I don’t like it…”

 

He knew the feeling, of coming out from anaesthesia, and knew she hated it. “It’s alright, you’re okay now,” he assured her lightly. “Surgery’s over.”

 

“I don’t feel…”  

 

“Don’t worry about anything, hon,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “You’re going to be okay. Everything’s okay.”

 

He hoped. God, he hoped. He still had no idea what happened to her, why she was in the hospital, but he knew that emergency surgery could mean a great deal of possibilities, none of them which were going to have a good impact on her. He was terrified of the biostimulant failing, of it causing more harm than good, of the untested prototype taking away the gift it had given her only recently.

 

He wasn’t sure she could handle losing the ability to walk again. It had been so crushing the first time around, despite her expertise with a brave face and furious determination, that he was certain having to endure it for a second time would defeat her. He’d witnessed first hand the strength she’d needed to learn an entirely new way of living, and he’d been amazed last time - surely no human being could find that strength for a second time?

 

“Baby…” she murmured, turning her head away from him.

 

She hadn’t called him that in so long.  _ So long _ . It made him ache. He watched her struggle to search the room, her eyes unfocused and lightly cupped her cheek, guiding her back to him. 

 

“I’m here, hon. I’m right here,” he assured her, trying not to think of that pet name that only ever fell from her lips in the middle of the night when he was ridden with nightmares that had him wanting to crawl out of his skin and into her own. 

 

But she frowned, pulling her head back and twisting away from him. “They said baby…”

 

“Felicity…” he tried to stop her, holding her still when she cried out weakly, stiffening as her body wracked with the pain caused by her movement.

 

“It hurts… My stomach…” she whined.

 

“Just hold my hand, okay?” he told her, lying her back comfortably as the pain brought her back to herself somewhat. The confusion was slipping from her face as she resisted his hold as much as possible. Luckily for Oliver, her strength wasn’t anywhere near her usual capacity - he knew exactly how stubbornly she could fight his hold on a day where she just  _ had _ to work even though he was pulling her back to bed. He tightened his hand around hers, one arm still keeping her as still as he could to stop her hurting herself. “Squeeze it real tight, can you do that?”

 

Her fingers flexed around his, not as fiercely as he’d have liked but enough to know that she could hear and understand him. “Good girl.”

 

She took a few heavy breaths, her eyes meeting his. They were still glassy, but at least had more focus on him now. “I didn’t see her…”

 

Oliver’s forehead wrinkled as he leaned in closer to her.  “Felicity?”

 

“I didn’t see her…” she repeated, her voice cracking as she took a deeper breath that sent a shockwave of pain through her body. 

 

Instantly, his hand moved up to her cheek, steadying her. “Hey, just take a breath, it’s okay…”

 

With her eyes slammed shut against the pain, she leaned into his palm. “My stomach hurts…”

 

He released her hand, slipping his hand down towards her stomach. “It’s okay, it’s just…”

 

A hand instantly shot between them to prevent him from moving any further. Oliver glanced towards the intrusion and found one of the recovery nurses preventing him from moving his hand any lower.  “Sir, please, don’t. You might damage the sutures.”

 

“Sutures?” he repeated, glancing down at her stomach. He’d assumed it was her spine. He’d assumed it was something to do with the implant. He’d assumed... “Surgery… what surgery did she have?”

 

The nurse looked at him for just a moment before she responded. “An emergency c-section, sir.”

 

The words hit him as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over him. He’d experienced that before, as part of his torture many years before, and just like then he was struggling to find his breath while every part of his body felt like it was seizing up. His muscles had locked into place and all he could do was loosely hold Felicity’s hand, realising that his life could no longer be defined as pre-island and post-island, but before and after he had heard those words.

 

_ Emergency c-section. _

 

“Excuse me?” he repeated.

 

“The baby’s in the NICU,” the nurse informed him. “Once Miss Smoak has been moved to a room, I can get you an update.”

 

Baby. 

 

Baby.

 

_ Baby _ .

 

“The baby... We… She had a  _ baby _ ?”

 

His head was spinning, the room suddenly feeling suffocating and small and he didn’t know what to do or what to say or where he should be. Should he be here? Was he supposed to be here? He wasn’t doing anything, he felt like he should be doing something, anything, but all he was doing was standing there, holding her hand and trying to remember what life was like before this night.

 

“Oliver…”

 

Felicity’s strained voice stole his attention back to her, and for a moment all he could see was the woman he loved in a hospital bed and -  _ she’d just had a child, their child _ \- what was he supposed to do? 

 

At a loss of what else he could do, he readjusted his grip on her hand while the nurse prepared some pain medication for her. “I’m here, hon. I’m here.” 

 

“Make it stop…” she pleaded with him. “It hurts…”

 

She had asked him for one thing since he had arrived. Make it stop. But he couldn’t even do that, he realised, as they ignored the presence of the nurse who administered her pain relief and stepped away to give them a moment. It was fast-acting, and she seemed to relax a little straight away. “I… Felicity…” he trailed off.

 

What could he say?

 

What could he do?

 

Felicity’s eyes closed with a whisper that was the only words that he could agree with. 

 

“I didn’t know…”

 

\--

 

Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak had a daughter. She was born by emergency c-section at seven thirty-two p.m on the first of August. Immediately after her birth she was taken straight to the NICU for emergency care. She was born far too early.

 

Three hours after her birth, that was all the information Oliver had about their child.

 

Given that she was born early, Oliver had tried to work out when they had unknowingly conceived their child, and all he could assume was that it was one of the nights after the implant had been fitted, when she had started to recover from the surgery and while her mobility wasn’t starting to return just yet, they’d had fun experimenting with what feelings  _ were _ starting to return below the waist. Regardless, their daughter was premature, and in the NICU, and no doctor had been around to update them yet.

 

After drifting back into a medicated sleep in the recovery ward, Oliver had accompanied her up to her private room with Donna. That was when he had discovered how Felicity had been feeling unwell for most of the day, and that Donna had called the ambulance when she had collapsed with stomach pains. They had assessed her, discovered the pregnancy and taken her straight through for surgery. It had all happened so fast, and no one had any idea that Felicity had been pregnant. 

 

Regardless, their child had grown unknowingly and had flourished with the same sudden burst that their love had, and now she was here. 

 

He had to assume that she was here. He had to believe that if she were anything other than alive, someone would have told them otherwise.

 

“Oliver…”

 

He’d been gazing into a cold cup of coffee when he heard her voice, stronger than it had been before. He set the styrofoam cup aside to stand over her when he saw her trying to move. 

 

“Hey...take it slow…” he murmured, helping her into a more comfortable position and arranging the pillows behind her in a way that kept her comfortable. “That’s it… how are you feeling?” he asked, settling back into the chair he’d pulled up to her side.

 

“Sore,” she mumbled. Her eyes still fluttering between waking and dozing. “Why are you-?”

 

“Your Mom called when you were taken into surgery,” he reminded her. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t remember him in the recovery ward, given the anaesthesia still in her system.

 

“Surgery?” she frowned, and she looked around her, taking in the sight of the plain hospital room. “I… oh.”

 

The weight of the situation hit her, and he watched the rush of emotions sink into her expression. Fear. Confusion. Pain. Concern. Confusion. So much confusion.

 

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly.

 

She swallowed audibly, releasing a shaky breath as her hand dropped down to her stomach. “They said I was… that I had…”

 

“A little girl,” Oliver confirmed

 

Felicity’s hands flew up to her eyes, covering her face from him as she sucked in a deep breath. “Oh god,” she whined into her hands, and he could hear how close to the edge of despair she was. When she lowered her hands, there were tears on her cheeks and she was shaking.

 

Oliver reached towards her, his hand landing on her blanket-covered knee . “Are you okay?”

 

“Where is she?” Felicity demanded.

 

“Felicity, I need to know if you’re in pain--”

 

“Why isn’t she in  _ here _ ?” she cut him off with a look of desperation. “Is she-?”

 

He understood it then, the same fear that had been creeping up on him for the last few hours. She wasn’t there. Neither of them had seen their child. Not even glimpsed her face. They hadn’t seen her, hadn’t held her. 

 

She’d woken up from a c-section without her child within reach.

 

She feared the worst.

 

“The baby’s in the NICU,” Oliver confirmed for her. That for as far as he knew, their child was alive. “That’s all they’d tell me.”

 

\---

 

“I swear I didn’t know.”

 

They’d been sat in silence for almost two hours when she finally spoke. Her eyes had been closed, feigning the sleep that regular nurse checks encouraged her to have, but the tears on her cheeks were fresh each time he looked her way. He’d let her have her silence as long as she’d needed it, because there were still too many thoughts in his head than he knew how to organise. She’d always been good at doing that for him, calming the storm in his mind, but now there was one in her own and rather than building a life raft they were floating aimlessly in each other’s orbit, neither reaching out but neither moving away.

 

“Felicity…” he started, but the words faded into nothing.

 

“I’d never have kept this from you,” she insisted, shaking her head as she started to move so she wasn’t lying down any more.

 

Oliver jumped into action, reaching for the controls that slowly bought her bed up until she was comfortably upright and she nodded at him for stop. Lowering himself into the chair at her side, he let out a long breath. “You didn’t even suspect?” he asked.

 

She shook her head. “I thought I was stressed… I didn’t even  _ imagine  _ I’d be…” Her hands came up to drag her hair away from her face, which was distraught. “Oh god, I’m so  _ sorry _ ,” her voice broke, a fresh wave of tears taking over far quicker than she could wipe them away.

 

He reached out and took one of her trembling hands in his own. “Felicity, you have nothing to apologise for.”

 

“She’s born too early,” she argued. “They said she’s so small. I wasn’t eating well, I wasn’t sleeping… god, Oliver, I was  _ drinking…  _ I wasn’t taking care of her.” 

 

There was so much guilt in her voice that it broke his heart. He never wanted such a weight on her shoulders, and in his attempt to keep her away from the burdens of their heavy lifestyle, somehow, a human life of their own had been created, slipping by unmissed. 

 

“You didn’t know,” he reminded her, his voice soft. 

 

“But why didn’t I?” she cried, finally bringing her gaze to his. 

 

“Felicity-”

 

“Mothers are supposed to know these things,” she told him. “I didn’t… I didn’t even feel her. What kind of mother--”

 

“Don’t even think it,” he spoke over her quickly, not allowing her to say the words he knew she’d regret.

 

“She’s sick because of  _ me _ .”

 

“We don’t know that she’s sick, Felicity,” he reminded her. “She might just be small.”

 

“Then why won’t they let us see her?” she challenged, gesturing to the empty room around them - the space that their newborn daughter should fill. 

 

“Felicity, you just had major surgery…” he pointed out, his gaze dropping to her stomach which was covered by the blanket and the bandages beneath it.

 

“They won’t even show us a picture, Oliver,” her voice shattered, and that was what broke him. Because it wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. None of this should have happened, this wasn’t how they were supposed to welcome their child into the world. 

 

“Hey… look at me. We don’t know anything yet,” Oliver told her, letting his hand find hers. “Let’s just wait for the doctor to come back.”

 

She didn’t argue against him this time, her eyes fixed on an empty spot so intensely, as if she could just magic her child into her presence. “How are you so calm?” she asked him quietly.

 

Oliver sank backwards, running his free hand over his face. “Honestly?” he sighed, struggling to find the right words to describe the turmoil that had taken over him. “I’m still… shocked. I never… imagined…”

 

“Me either,” she admitted.

 

They never had talked about kids. No matter how many times people hinted at it, it was a conversation they had always tabled for a later date. It was an unspoken agreement that they wanted to enjoy their time together before having any kids, and then later that they would want to get married before they had kids. But then later had happened and they hadn’t been together, and they still weren’t together now, but their daughter had come into the world without a care for the fragile situation they were afraid to repair.

 

“No matter what we imagined, she’s here, so…”

 

“For now,” she whispered.

 

Even the suggestion made his heart sink. “Felicity…”

 

“She’s not ready for this world, Oliver.”

 

\--

 

In the past year, Oliver had let his mind drift to having a child with Felicity many times. How could it not? In truth, he had first pictured her with their newborn when they had visited John and Lyla’s daughter in the hospital, and it had hit him that if he was deserving enough, maybe he’d be here with his friends and family in years to come except maybe that beautiful child would be his and it would be Felicity grinning proudly with the infant in her arms.

 

As soon as he had driven away with her in the passenger seat to the rest of his life, he had realised it was what he wanted; everything. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to watch her carry their children. He wanted to cry in the hospital as he held his firstborn child, and breathe in that new baby smell that John swore was intoxicating. He wanted to argue over baby names and fall in love with this child that was purely theirs, untouched by any of the world’s evils. He wanted to be a father.

 

Becoming a father was nothing like he imagined.

 

Some of the dream remained the same. 

 

There were tears on his cheek when he first laid eyes on his daughter, when they had finally bought the incubator up to Felicity’s private room for them to finally meet her. And he had fallen in love with her straight away. Oh, he had fallen in love.

 

She had Felicity’s tiny nose - and oh, she was tiny. She was so small. Frighteningly so. She was the poster child for every horror story he’d ever heard about premature birth, and yet she was perfect because she was his daughter, their daughter, and she had made it through the first hours of her life because she was a fighter. It was in her blood.

 

“Felicity… you need to come see her.”

 

While Oliver was content to stand beside the incubator, leaning over the plastic covering his child as if he might get closer to her although they had been asked not to open it by the nurses who had left them alone with their child, Felicity had not made any effort to move to see her. 

 

“I hurt her.”

 

He finally tore his eyes away from his daughter to see her nervously biting at her fingernails, tears on her cheeks because he knew what was going through her head; the fear that she was responsible for the premature birth because she hadn’t known she was pregnant. He turned to her, going back to her side. 

 

“You didn’t hurt her, Felicity…” he told her softly.

 

“Your baby deserves better,” she said with a firm shake of her head, careful not to let her gaze slip towards the incubator. “She deserves a better mother than me.”

 

“Don’t,” he snapped quickly.

 

“Oliver-”

 

“Don’t  _ ever  _ say that my baby -  _ our  _ baby - deserves a better mother than you,” he insisted, and without question he took her hands, urging her out of the bed. “Come here.” 

 

Knowing that fighting it would end with her tugging on her stitches and feeling the pulling pain she was instantly coming to hate, she moved with him, letting him lift her to her feet. He carefully led her to the site of the incubator, more specifically to the holes at the side which enabled them to reach through and touch their baby. He slid his hands in alongside hers, guiding her to place her hands how he had his only moments before. “Now, one hand here… and… yeah, that’s what they said to do,” he encouraged, as she settled one hand on the baby’s stomach and the other on the tiny curve of her head. “They said it’ll help her.”

 

Felicity’s breath caught in her chest. “ _ Oliver _ , she’s so…”

 

“She’s just small,” he whispered.

 

“She’s  _ too  _ small--”

 

“But she’s going to be okay,” he told her firmly, the words that he’d repeated to himself since he’d finally laid eyes on her for the first time. “She’s going to be strong.”

 

She shook her head. “But look at her…”

 

“I am looking at her. Do you know what I see? Your nose… your stubborn pursed lips… she’s beautiful…” he whispered in awe. 

 

“But she’s  _ so… _ ”

 

“She’s  _ ours _ . That’s all that matters,” Oliver finished for her. “Sick, small, healthy or not, she’s ours.”

 

Felicity’s shaken breaths quickly dissolved into soft sobs. Oliver withdrew his hands from hers so that she was in sole contact with their baby, and her forehead fell to the side of the incubator. “I’m so  _ sorry… _ ” she cried down at their daughter. “I’m sorry you’re so small. I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you.”

 

Oliver’s hand rubbed up her back, fully aware that nothing would truly be able to bring her comfort in this moment. “Felicity…”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t feel you…”

 

At those words, Oliver pulled her hands away and drew her into his arms before he could even think about the action. “Come here.” Their break up seemed a million miles away from being stood at their newborn daughter’s side, and he knew that the way she sank into his arms wasn’t just out of exhaustion. 

 

They needed each other. Their daughter needed them. 

 

“It’s okay,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

 

“What are we going to do?” she cried into his shoulder, resting more of her weight against him. 

 

He didn’t have any answer for that yet.

 

\---

 

An hour later, they were still alone with their daughter. A doctor was checking in on her every fifteen minutes, but between that they mostly sat in silence, a chair on either side of the incubator so they could each sit with a hand on her. Felicity’s hand cradled her head of dark blonde hair and Oliver’s larger palm easily covered her whole torso. 

 

“Oliver,” Felicity whispered to get his attention, neither of them taking their eyes off of their child. “We aren’t ready for this.”

 

“We aren’t prepared,” he corrected her.

 

She sighed. “What do we do?”

 

“We can’t take her home right away, that gives us time to get ready,” he pointed out. 

 

He knew that she wasn’t just thinking about the fact that they had nothing for the baby; no crib, no diapers, no clothes - nothing at all. She was thinking about the more immediate issues that he had pushed out of his mind in order to deal with this newly presented issue. 

 

“But, we… everything’s so complicated, Oliver,” she sighed, leaning her forehead against the incubator again.

 

“Well, we need to uncomplicate it,” he stated simply, flexing his fingers against the baby’s stomach. “For her. Everything needs to be for her now.”

 

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “We didn’t get to enjoy it.”

 

He lifted his eyes from their daughter at last, finding Felicity looking down at her with so much regret and adoration in her eyes, a stormy combination that just created more tears that threatened to consume her once again. “What do you mean?”

 

Her eyes didn’t meet his, both of them still focused on the baby. “Before we… My mom asked me if I knew what a good dad you’d be, and I said I knew it in my bones…” she recalled, with a slight lift in her lips that was more wistful than any show of happiness. 

 

“Felicity…”

 

“That night I was picturing… not planning,” she rushed to assure him quickly, “Just… thinking… what it would be like.”

 

He wasn’t sure which night that had been, but knowing that it was any night where he was lying beside her was enough to make his stomach twist. Even now, when they weren’t together, she managed to remind him that being with her was the best thing he’d ever done in his life. Well, he supposed he’d have to make room for something new at the top of that list; wasn’t a child meant to be a man’s greatest accomplishment? To have gifted life to the world and nurture it?

 

“I thought about it a lot,” he confessed. 

 

“You did?”

 

He nodded, tapping his fingers lightly over his daughter’s torso. It was remarkable to think that beneath his palm was her tiny heartbeat powering those fast little breaths. He wondered how it would feel when she was strong enough to lie in his arms. 

 

“When we were in Ivy Town, I… I thought about it a lot.”

 

Felicity’s thumb ran over the baby’s hairline, stroking the tiny strands in a silent assurance that she was there. “I thought we’d find out together,” she murmured. “That we’d get to hear the heartbeat… that we’d be together when they were born.”

 

He could see it so clearly as she described it to him; the idea of them sitting side by side as they waited those long three minutes for a pregnancy test, and him holding her hand in the hospital as they heard that rushed heartbeat. He’d been so ready for it so quickly, even when they’d barely been a couple for a few moments he knew he was ready to have it all with Felicity; he’d wanted to be her husband, to father her children, and that was a realisation he hadn’t been able to put into words straight away.

 

But she’d been hoping too, he could see it now. The only regret she had about their child was the circumstances of her birth; that they hadn’t been able to experience the pregnancy or hold her baby in the moments after she was born. Nothing about this had fit the dream, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love her.

 

“I thought everything would be okay,” she told him shakily, her voice on the verge of tears once again.

 

“Hey,” he whispered, drawing her gaze up to his at last. “It  _ is  _ going to be okay.”

 

She shook her head, bringing her free hand up to wipe at her face. “It’s stupid. I’m worrying about not being able to take her home, and she hasn’t even got a home to go to.”

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“I’m sleeping in my mom’s guest room,” she gave him a pointed look, reminding him that a premature child wasn’t their only harsh reality to deal with. “She doesn’t have a real home, we don’t have any clothes, or a crib, we don’t know anything about babies, and she doesn’t even have a  _ name…  _ This is the longest we’ve talked in months…”

 

“Felicity, you know that you have a home, both of you.” 

 

“It’s not that simple, Oliver.”

 

“It has to be,” he insisted. 

 

Because it had to be. It had to be simply because they had a daughter now and she came before any of their disagreements. More than that, he didn’t want his daughter growing up away from him. He didn’t want to be some weekend Dad to the child he had with the woman he loved. He knew he’d made mistakes, knew he had to grow before he could be what she deserved him to be, but his daughter didn’t have time to sit around and wait for him to be a better man, she needed him to act now, and that didn’t involve him going to a home that she wasn’t a part of.

 

“You sent William away.”

 

And just like that, he understood.

 

“Felicity…” he started, letting her name fall away from him.

 

“If that’s what will happen to her one day, maybe it’s best we stay in the guest room at Mom’s,” she said quietly.

 

“No, Felicity… look at me,” he urged.

 

She shook her head, only looking down at their child. “I can’t go through that, Oliver…”

 

He’d sent William away because he knew he’d be safer away from him. He’d made a choice to be apart from his son just like her father had made a choice to be away from her. She didn’t want that for her daughter and she was right to be worried about it; but he would never miss out on raising his child again. William wasn’t solely his responsibility, and Samantha had been as much a deciding party in his absence as he had, but this was  _ their _ baby, their brand new baby they had conceived while they were engaged and in love and this wasn’t something he could step out of.

 

“You won’t have to, I promise,” he told her. “Either of you.”

 

“I don’t want her growing up like I did. Blaming herself…”

 

“Felicity…  _ I love you _ ,” he cut her off firmly. 

 

“Oliver…”

 

“No, I love you,” he repeated. “I never stopped. I screwed up, and I am probably going to screw up a thousand times more, but this…  _ her _ ... you… This is  _ not  _ something I am walking away from.”

 

Felicity fell quiet for a long moment, resting her forehead against the plastic lid of the incubator.  “What are we supposed to do?”

 

“I have no idea.”

 

\---

 

He’d only left for a few hours, but it had seemed like a lifetime that Oliver had been away from the hospital. Once Felicity had fallen asleep, and their daughter was taken to the NICU for some more tests, he’d decided to use his time productively, to go for a shower and pick up some things. They were clearly going to be at the hospital for a while, given their daughter’s condition, so he packed a few changes of clothes into a holdall along with whatever medical insurance details he could find; he wasn’t sure what they’d need.

 

After visiting home quickly, his next stop was Donna’s place. She’d remained at the hospital while he went, so she had slipped him her key which he used to let himself in. It was odd to think that this is where the woman he loved was currently living, but he pushed that aside as he packed a few comfortable changes of clothes for her too into another bag, stopping in the bathroom to pick up whatever he recognised as hers, along with her tablet, phone and chargers. 

 

He made a few more stops before he went back to the hospital, where he switched with Donna to let her go home and get some much needed sleep. His immediate concern was that there were two nurses in the room, and his daughter wasn’t there. Felicity was sat in the chair beside her bed, upright with her cheeks stained with tears. It made something burn within him; that impulsive urge that told him something had happened, and he made his way over to her quickly, dropping the bags on the end of her bed.

 

“Felicity…”

 

He knelt down in front of her, filled with a terror. What if something had happened to their baby? What if the tests had been bad? What if she’d gotten worse? What if she’d slipped away and he wasn’t there? What if his baby was hurting or worse, what if she-?”

 

“It’s okay, these are happy tears,” she smiled at him, looking down at her front.

 

Felicity pulled aside the edges of the bathrobe Donna had bought for her that morning, showing that now-familiar tufty hair that lay over their baby’s head. She wasn’t in the incubator anymore. She still had that tiny nasal cannula taped in place, but she was out of the incubator and she was tucked safely against her mother’s chest. 

 

He felt the bottom fall out of him as he realised she was okay. She had to be okay, right? Why else would she be out of the incubator? His eyes burned as if they were going to fill up again, and he let out a long sigh of relief. 

 

“We’re allowed to hold her?” he asked in disbelief, his eyes fixated on the still far-too-tiny newborn cradled against her chest.

 

Felicity nodded. “Yeah, they said skin contact will help her keep her temperature normal, and for… bonding.”

 

He knew that would be important; especially for her. One of the things they’d found time to talk about before he’d gone home was that she was worried she wouldn’t have that special bond with her baby. She hadn’t had the joys of feeling her bump, or the baby kicking within it, and there wasn’t anything that could replace that. Suddenly, they just had a baby, one that they weren’t ready for or prepared for, but they had to catch up with her.

 

But this? Seeing her tucked into her mother’s arms? It felt like they’d been waiting for her for a long time.

 

“How does it feel?” Oliver asked in wonder. 

 

“Amazing,” she breathed out, her fingers grazing the top of their daughter’s head with far more confidence now that she was in her arms not an incubator. “I… I can feel her heart beating and her little breaths and… it’s so good.” 

 

He leaned in from where he knelt, cupping his hand over the shape off the baby’s back where it protruded out the front of Felicity’s gown. He knew it was wishful thinking, but in the hours he’d been gone he was convinced that she’d grown already.  “Hi, sweetheart, Daddy missed you…”

 

One day she was going to run into his arms and welcome him with a cry of ‘Daddy!’ when he came home. He could believe it now, seeing this, seeing her in Felicity’s arms properly. But today, knowing that she was fighting was welcome enough for him. 

 

“Where did you go?” Felicity asked him.

 

He reluctantly stood up from his crouch, going back to the bags that he’d put on the end of her bed. “I was hoping I’d be back before you woke up, I didn’t realise I’d be as long as I was.”

 

“I was worried…” she admitted quietly. 

 

“I went home, and to your moms,” he told her, taking things out of the bag and distributing them around the room as he needed to. Piece by piece, it seemed less clinical as he set her tablet and chargers into the drawer unit beside the bed, and placed a pile of folded clothes on the sheets so she could take her pick. “I got you some things so you can get out of these gowns. Just some pyjamas and sweaters, and shampoo and stuff.”

 

Her concern lifted as she watched him unpacking, no longer concerned that he had left for good. “Thank you.”

 

“I also… did something else,” he explained, going back to her side with his phone in his hand before he held it out to her. “Here…”

 

“What?” she asked, finally lifting her gaze from their sleeping daughter.

 

“I took pictures, I…”

 

She took his phone with the hand that wasn’t supporting the baby, looking at the photograph he’d offered up on his screen.  “Oh, Oliver…”

 

“You were worried about her not having a home to go to. I… I put the crib together this morning, it’s next to your side of the bed. Obviously not long-term, but until we can convert the guest room into a nursery for her.”

 

“It looks beautiful,” she smiled.

 

She was still holding his phone as he went back to the other bag, zipping it open and taking out a few of the items that they would need - they might not need it all for now, but he wanted them to have everything close just in case. “This bag… this is for her. It’s preemie clothes, some blankets, and uh this…” He took out a white stuffed bear, one that had bright blue beaded eyes and a pink shirt. 

 

“Baby girl…” Felicity murmured, reading the two words stitched on the bear’s shirt. 

 

He nodded. “Since she’ll have to stay here for a while, I thought she could have this in the crib here, so that when we take her home she’ll have something familiar, in case… in case she can’t sleep or…”

 

“It’s perfect, Oliver. Thank you. All of this…”

 

“And a baby name book,” he added, setting that on the top of the drawers beside her. “Figured we needed one of those.”

 

“I guess so,” she nodded. They couldn’t keep calling her ‘Sweetheart’ or ‘Baby Girl’ for the rest of her life. She needed a name. 

 

“One more thing,” he announced with a deeper inhale, turning to her with a far smaller, more precious item than anything else he had bought with him. 

 

“Oliver…” she whispered, as he set her engagement ring into the palm of her hand.

 

“You don’t have to wear it, but… as far as I’m concerned, this belongs to you,” he told her. “You are the love of my life, the mother of my child… I know you’re not ready to wear it, but I want you to have it, so that you know that I’m not leaving.”

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m not going anywhere, Felicity.”

 

She gazed down at this for some time before she whispered to him. “I haven’t… I don’t have anywhere safe to keep it.”

 

It hadn’t been the response he’d been hoping for, but then he realised he wasn’t entirely sure what he was aiming for by giving her something she had returned to him more than once.  “Oh. Well, I can…”

 

“Here…”

 

And with one word she astounded him, yet again. With some careful assistance she transferred the ring onto the finger he had once placed it on himself, securing that love for her against their child’s back as she held her in place. 

 

Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

 

“Felicity…”

 

“I’m pretty sure this is the very definition of sickness and in health, right?” she told him, adjusting her hold on their daughter before one of her hands slipped into his. 

 

He agreed with a smile, squeezing her hand back. “For better for worse.”

 

For a moment, they just watched one another, and he could feel their barricades falling away so that all that was left between them was their tiny daughter. A small, weak cry came from between them, nothing worthy of a newborn, but enough to get their attention. Felicity rubbed her back, appearing far more confident than she felt, and the girl fell quiet once again, content in the arms of her mother.

 

When she settled, Felicity let out a sigh. “I wish I could trade you in for a hug, because holding her is really amazing, but…”

 

“Take your time with her,” Oliver assured her, leaning in to place a soft kiss on his daughter’s head. She felt so warm and real beneath his touch. “The nurse outside mentioned getting you up for a shower, I’ll tag in then.”

 

He went to stand, but Felicity reached out to stop him.  “Oliver…”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I think we’re going to be okay,” she said with a small smile.

 

“We’re going to be fine,” he assured her confidently. “All of us.”

 

Amelia Grace Queen was named that evening as she was held in her father’s arms for the first time. She spent six long weeks in the hospital before she was taken home by both of her parents, and she grew to be a happy and healthy little girl. When she was five years old, she would be joined by a younger brother, and a sister just two years after. 

 

And just as Oliver had been certain of; they were fine. 

  
  



End file.
